Sleeping Beauty-ish

Princess Rosalyn's Journal

Dear Diary,

I oversaw the making of my own tomb today. It was quite depressing, to be honest. I did not tell Father; he insists that we shall find a cure. I do not believe him. I never have, and I never will. The servants protested as well, but I did not believe them, either. It is true that Father named me the heir to his kingdom, despite my gender, but I am also the reason this kingdom will perish. I know this is a short entry, but Father is calling me to dinner, and I must still get dressed.

~Rosalyn

I stared at Rosalyn's entry. How could she be so solemn, so exceedingly accepting of her death, when she was only sixteen? Her death had to be years off. I shut her journal. This was the fifth entry I'd read, and all of them expressed something to do with her death, never talking about how it was caused specifically, and all of them mentioning her father, who apparently loved her very much. One of them mentioned her little brother, Tommy, who had to be the five-year-old boy, and another expressed her anger at "Angelina" for breaking into the alchemist's shop and trying to find a potion to cure her, as if she had an illness.

I only knew this much: I had to go back to that castle and find Rosalyn's tomb.

It was exactly midnight. I grabbed my flashlight and crept out of the house, heading for the spot where I'd seen the castle. By the time I got there, an hour had passed. I crept through the hole I'd made in the castle's wall and peered around the throne room. I followed the hall with the portraits, and then began shining my flashlight around further. I hadn't ventured past this point, but it felt like Rosalyn was urging me onwards.

Yeah, yeah, I know. It sounded crazy. But I finally arrived at what had to be the royal chambers - all of the beds king-size (pun not intended) and looked at the various rooms. One of them was probably the king's, one of them was probably the younger princess's, with its lacy canopy - and then I yelled.

The younger princess was still asleep in her bed. Or at least, someone who looked exactly like the younger princess.

Tentatively, I crept into her room. It felt weird, entering a girl's room without her permission. Did that count as breaking and entering?

I felt for a pulse, and unbelievably, she still had one. There was no physical difference between this little princess, sleeping peacefully, and the one I'd seen in the portrait. It was impossible.

I slowly walked out of the little princess's room (after tucking her back in) and looked into the king's bedroom. I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed it before, but dear old dad, his kingly posture visible even in this death-like sleep, was tucked into his own bed, too.

I continued down the hallway to the nursery, where a maid sat asleep, almost as if in a trance, her head tilted backwards on the chair. She was going to have one hell of a neck cramp when, or if, she ever woke up. Only a few feet past her lay the little boy, collapsed on the ground - in the midst of an escape, perhaps?

Sure enough, both of them had a pulse. They were sleeping, and it was like no time had passed since their own lifetimes.

When I found the last bedroom, though, I was sorely disappointed. Rosalyn wasn't in it. Then I tripped over a handle and cursed. "Sorry, princess," I muttered to no one, but I looked to find the handle. It was almost invisible, and the hinges were so rusted over it took me ages to lift up, but with a cloud of dust and a bunch of coughing from yours truly, I discovered a stone staircase.

I laughed out loud. Dad hadn't even come close to finding Rosalyn's tomb.

I descended the staircase, but my laughter quickly disappeared as I recalled every single horror movie I'd ever seen. (Helpful hint to all eleven-year-olds: pay attention to the R rating on the Conjuring. They mean it.) Hopefully there wouldn't be any ghosts down here.

There were four tombs, three of them empty. The fourth lay in the dead center, and was made of glass, with jewels embedded in the sides. Rosalyn, too, looked like she was just sleeping. She was wearing a white dress and her eyes were closed peacefully.

"Is this some kind of Sleeping Beauty deal?" I whispered to myself, for lack of any other noise. "Seriously, why is everyone sleeping?"

And the princess didn't look dead at all - not decomposed, no bones, nada.

I lifted the glass lid off of Rosalyn's tomb, wincing as it made a loud crash, and felt for a pulse. Sure enough, she had one.

"Great. So there're 800-year-old comatose patients in this castle, and there's a very little chance they're going to wake up, or that anyone's going to believe they're actually comatose and not dead. Aside from that, I'm almost definitely grounded, thanks to my midnight adventures," I said to myself. "Why can't one of them just wake up?" I kicked the wall in frustration, and then yelled out loud as someone spoke.

"That's quite rude, you know," said a girl's voice with a British accent.

I slowly turned around, my flashlight pointing towards Rosalyn's sleeping form. Except there was one tiny little problem.

Rosalyn wasn't sleeping anymore.

"And besides," she said with irritation, "you were supposed to wake me with a kiss. Or my true love was, anyways, and now my siblings are doomed to sleep forever, unless I am able to find my true love within a week. Mother's curse was very thorough."

I screamed. (I'm not proud of it, but what would you do in this situation?)